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The 11-story Wellington Annex on Howard Street is imploded Saturday morning. The building was demolished to make way for Albany's new $66.5 convention center. (Will Waldron, Times Union)

Eagle-eyed observers at Saturday’s implosion of the Wellington Annex in downtown Albany may have noticed a small dark mass hovering over the blast site.

That was a drone (a quadcopter to be precise) taking video and photos of the destruction from an overhead angle. While the Times Union had photographers and reporters underneath The Egg, atop the Corning Tower, on the Albany County office building on State Street and across the South Mall Arterial, the drone, piloted by David Austin of American Multimedia Works, captured some great shots from roughly 200 feet in the air.

Check out the video of the demolition below.

Austin also has a video up of some still photographs from the moments after the building came down.

In emailing the links to us this morning, Austin also gave a quick lesson in unmanned aircraft regulations. He said he didn’t charge anyone to shoot the video, per FAA regulations, and he was beyond the three miles from an airport the Academy of Model Aeronautics suggests and the five miles the FAA calls for. The site is roughly eight miles from Albany International Airport.

Austin added that Albany Police, State Police and CDI, the demolition company that sent the building out with a boom, helped him stay away from the crowds that gathered to watch.

While regulating drones is a newer topic at the federal and state levels, state Sen. Greg Ball introduced a billearlier this year aimed at making sure drones are used for the right purposes. A few other drone-related bills (click the link and search “unmanned aircraft”) have been proposed in the Legislature, though they have yet to be signed into law.

Thanks to Dave Austin, American Multimedia Works, the Times Union, and Capitol Confidential for a great video of the implosion, the stills, and the other vids. The addition of the fireworks and colored smoke made this one of the top implosion videos we’ve every watched!

About Capitol Confidential

Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.